Will solar decathlon live up to great expectations?

Feb. 14, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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John Wray, 20, of Finleyville, Pa., center, along with the rest of team West Virginia University tour the Orange County Great Park in January. The completed houses will be open for public viewing in early October. MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Representatives from the 20 collegiate teams competing in the Department of Energy Solar Decathlon assemble at the Orange County Great Park in January. In October, they will return to the site to build and operate solar-powered homes. MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Colin Polleys, an engineering student from Rolla, Mo., stands alongside fellow members of team Missouri University of Science & Technology in January. Other students have come from as far as the Czech Republic and Austria for this year's Solar Decathlon. MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

John Wray, 20, of Finleyville, Pa., center, along with the rest of team West Virginia University tour the Orange County Great Park in January. The completed houses will be open for public viewing in early October. MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

In the days and minutes before Irvine's new political majority voted to terminate Great Park public relations and lobbying contracts worth up to $1.1 million annually, those opposed to the move warned that it could doom a key event on the horizon – the U.S. Solar Decathlon, scheduled Oct. 3-13.

Councilman Larry Agran – now outnumbered politically on the council – compared terminating Forde & Mollrich's public relations contract to pulling a brain surgeon out of the room in the middle of brain surgery.

But another councilman has taken issue with that characterization, contending that the PR firm and others tasked with executing the event missed key deadlines, and that the event will still go on without them.

"I'm happy to bring in a brain surgeon if it's within our budget," said Irvine Councilman Jeff Lalloway, chairman of the Great Park Corp. board of directors since January, at the last board meeting.

He said the Great Park will pull off the event it promised the Energy Department, even without companies whose contracts were terminated by the council's political majority – Lalloway, Mayor Steven Choi and Councilwoman Christina Shea.

"I have great confidence, and staff has assured me that we can make this a complete success," he said. "The success of the Solar Decathlon was never dependent on a bloated multimillion-dollar public relations contract being employed at the park."

The park's board – made up of the five Irvine council members since January, when the council voted 3-2 to shrink the board from nine members – voted at its last meeting to seek a project manager to coordinate all the remaining elements of the decathlon, including fundraising and public relations. Lalloway has publically asked the park's staff to tell the board what else is needed to pull off the event. Hiring a project coordinator had always been part of the plan.

Lalloway said that parties cited as key to the event's success actually have been behind the planning curve. He said a detailed event plan that should have been submitted to the Energy Department by August still isn't complete. He said he's been told the deadline was extended to March, but he still wants a plan.

Agran called Lalloway's claim that key planning hadn't been done "a smear," and said the new political council majority had taken a "wrecking ball" to the decathlon's planning team.

"My impression is that's it's been going well," Agran said of the efforts in the past 12 months.

Calls to the Department of Energy for comment weren't returned.

Tim Shaw, external-affairs manager of the Great Park and one of the primary planners of the Solar Decathlon event, said the missed deadline is because the park and Energy Department officials agreed to extend planning deadlines through March.

This year's event is the first to be scheduled outside Washington, D.C., so after the Great Park was awarded hosting duties, novel issues began to crop up – for one, the need to anchor the houses because of the possibility of earthquakes, Shaw said.

"We've solved that problem, that particular problem," he said. But there are others still being worked out, including how to connect the homes to electricity and Internet sources.

Shaw said that, despite the extended deadlines, the Great Park is "absolutely" on track to host the decathlon and the park's accompanying energy expo, dubbed XPO, which the park hopes to back with sponsorships and make an annual event.

"The bottom line is: It's not like we stopped work months ago. We've been working toward this," he said.

Shaw recently announced his resignation effective Feb. 22. He's taking an executive position with a Santa Ana-based nonprofit.

Like winning the lottery

The Great Park landed on the Energy Department's radar after local professor Fred Smoller, now with Chapman University, visited the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall by chance in 2009 while he was in Washington, D.C., for a conference.

Smoller said he was most impressed with the enthusiasm and engagement of the students who built each of the solar-powered homes. He thought something similar could be done in Orange County, so he contacted the Energy Department and eventually the decathlon's director.

Months later, Smoller said, he got a call from the director asking if the park was available, and that's when Smoller passed along the possibility to then-Great Park Chairman Agran. The idea eventually landed on the desks of marketing consultant Forde & Mollrich, Smoller said. The Energy Department sought proposals from prospective hosts, and the Great Park beat out about 20 contenders.

"This is like the lottery," Smoller said, crediting the park's staff and Forde & Mollrich – a firm at the center of controversy for no-bid contracts it was awarded for park work – for the winning application. Smoller, too, had a no-bid contract on the project for a short time last summer to help get Orange County's academic universities on board with support, a contract he said he wishes would have been put out to bid. Since August, when his contract expired, he's been essentially shut out of assisting on the event, he said.

Smoller said the decathlon could grow into something akin to the South by Southwest pop-culture mecca in Austin, Texas, each year if the Great Park continues to host it every two years.

"I understand the (Irvine) election results. I understand everything they're doing. When you look back, it makes sense," he said of the council majority's recent actions to terminate contracts it deemed excessive, adding that he thinks those changes should have been made after the decathlon was done. "But if you look forward at what (the event) could be, you don't want to cut off your nose to spite your face."

What the future holds

The application submitted to the Energy Department emphasizes the park's focus on marketing – saying it spends more than $1 million a year to market events at the park – and promises that attendance will be close to the 300,000 or so that have attended the event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., based on attendance for the park's other events.

Before its contract was terminated in January, Forde & Mollrich had the potential to earn up to $600,000 annually, plus up to $300,000 for miscellaneous services. That was after the firm had cut its billing from $100,000 a month.

With Forde & Mollrich, Townsend Public Affairs, Smoller and, soon, Shaw no longer involved, Agran said the future doesn't bode well for the event.

"Like it or not, it actually takes qualified, creative, extremely capable people to bring to reality an event of this magnitude and importance," he said. "These events don't organize themselves.

In addition to approving the hiring of a project manager, the majority of the council voted also to set up a subcommittee to meet regularly about the event's progress.

By the numbers

300,000: Expected number of visitors to the decathlon through 10 days.

20: Number of university teams participating.

$500,000: About the amount each team spends on its solar home entry in total.

$1 million: Maximum grant amount the Department of Energy has promised the Great Park as long as the park raises an equal amount.

$2 million: Budget for the Solar Decathlon including the DOE's grant and Great Park contribution.

Source: Orange County Register research

"The success of the Solar Decathlon was never dependent on a bloated multimillion-dollar public relations contract being employed at the park."

– Jeff Lalloway, Irvine councilman and chair of the Great Park board of directors, referring to a contract with Forde & Mollrich that the city ended in January.

"Like it or not, it actually takes qualified, creative, extremely capable people to bring to reality an event of this magnitude and importance."

"The bottom line is: It's not like we stopped work months ago. We've been working towards this."

– Tim Shaw, outgoing external affairs director for the Great Park Corp. and lead staff planner for the decathlon. Shaw announced he would resign effective Feb. 22 to take a position at a Santa Ana nonprofit.

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